This children's team on May 20 receives the grand prize at the Music & Dance Competition of the 19th Together Day ceremony at the University of Ulsan in Ulsan's Nam-gu District. (19th Together Day's official website)

By Margareth Theresia

The Ministry of Education on Aug. 25 said it developed a tool for gauging the Korean language proficiency of immigrant students at elementary, middle and high schools for national distribution.

The number of students from multicultural backgrounds in the country surged from 46,954 in 2012 to 202,208 last year, with their share of the student population jumping from 0.7% to 4%.

The ministry said it developed the tool to accurately evaluate the Korean proficiency of immigrant students who struggle with the language regardless of grade and provide them with customized instruction.

The expected proficiency levels have four categories: grades 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, and secondary school (grades 7-12). Each of the four language skills -- listening, speaking, reading and writing -- is further divided into four levels.

The ministry thus devised an assessment tool for teachers to gauge the Korean level of immigrant students in each language skill when they enter school.

The tool and a user guide can be downloaded from the sites Korean for Everyone (korean.edunet.net) and the Multicultural Education Portal (www.edu4mc.or.kr).

The ministry is also developing a student version of the tool to allow students to test their Korean proficiency via Korean for Everyone from the first half of next year.

margareth@korea.kr